Navman My Escape II

My Escape II. Poor design for durability – Purchased in ~2014. Used about four times on four holidays. Died in 2017. Just found this review page so thought, why not. Worked ok whilst it "lived". Lifespan is somewhat really poor, since we were expecting to get at least ten years out of it. Cheap & nasty? Here it is 2022, writing this on a 14 year old laptop next to my 15 year old nokia mobile phone that still works fine to make phone calls. Why did this navman just die ?

The pain is finally over! – My final letter to the Navman helpdesk, requesting comments be forwarded to management, provide insights into this fault-ridden product, My Escape II: "The hard reset process did not work. In fact, despite charging the device for at least 8 hours yesterday, the device barely had enough charge to perform the test on the audio setting, then the screen went blank.

Yes, the first My Escape II was purchased in 2014, but was riddled with problems and was replaced in 2016. This unit has been similarly plagued with problems, to such an extent, we became so frustrated with it that we only used it when we had to:

It often froze and had to be turned off to get it going again

Battery life when the device was unplugged from a power source was almost nil.... it never charged and retained charge

Randomly, directions from the device were ridiculous: e.g. on a well-established highway (not a new road when you could excuse it for not having the updated maps) suddenly we would be directed to take a left or right turn when no road existed

The voice / audio setting has been generally inoperative for the past 6 weeks

Last week when we tried to use the device and were travelling from Beaudesert (town about 60km south of Brisbane) to home in Brisbane and used the "recent locations" facility and selected our home address, it showed the message "no maps exist".

Even though we will have wasted the money spent to purchase the device ($300) and the $75 for the Western European maps, frankly, it will be a relief to throw this piece of rubbish away. Will I avail myself of the trade-in offer on another Navman? I'd have to be crazy! I'll buy a product from another manufacturer and hope that it works reliably. It could not be worse!

Please note, the above comments are made for Navman management and I would ask that you forward this email to relevant personnel. The comments are not directed at you or other members of the Helpdesk team who have generally provided as much support as possible dealing with issues relating to a very poor quality product.

My Escape II & Navman Support woes – Bought Escape II April 2014 - worked reasonably for 6 months - would on occasions find Phantom roads or U turn on Freeways & move off the road by a few hundred meters and more or less parallel the road on the display. Most of all 2016 the unit was in the office cupboard so no issues that year ........ Had problems up dating the free maps 2016 - just would not update until several attempts - then worked much the same as 2014 but now just froze up on a good few occasions while touring NSW.

2017 and went to update the maps again - the unit worked in the morning across Brisbane but failed miserably in the afternoon when trying to download maps. After e-mail advise from Navman followed the steps with notes - second attempt froze the unit at 32% Recovering your Navman, second attempt froze at 22% and the top few Cm of the screen when tapped would action what ever was further down the screen - only screen that worked was the address screen but that woukd not find the required location -

Further e-mails from Navman seem to advise that the screen has failed and that NO SERVICE IS NOW AVAILABLE ON ESCAPR II.

Asked for details of how to reformat the unit totally and reinstall everything - no response from Navman.

Now going to follow up with Consumer Affairs as an expensive item should require better support than for just under 3 years for supply of software and presumably parts. Will be interesting -

My advose is don't waste any money on a proven doubtful brand with very limited lifetime ( also read definition of LIFETIME on Navman web page ) maps . As on overseas person seems to like to tweet " SAD "

Works well.....except for in tunnels – I bought this unit from Dick Smith Electronics with the intention to use it on a daily basis for my business. I wanted a rugged GPS and this is advertised as being ruggedized. Overall look at feel is solid and quality construction. Didn't have an opportunity yet to try the Bluetooth or reverse camera functionality. Screen resolution, size, layout, voice guidance clear Doesnt work in tunnels, needs software update straight out of box, voice recognition hopeless, at times slow to update location